DoJ Disrupts Southeast Asia Crypto Fraud Networks, Freezes $3.8 Million in Assets

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the results of a sweeping action undertaken by government authorities and private sector companies to combat cyber-enabled and cryptocurrency fraud targeting Americans. The "Disruption Week" operation began May 18, 2026, leading to the...

The Romance Scammer Who Made a Small Fortune Posing as a WWE Superstar

In this excerpt from WIRED Book Club pick The Yahoo Boys, journalist Carlos Barragán traces one scammer’s journey from flop to fortune...

Scam compounds hiring “AI models” to seal the deal in deepfake video calls

Scam compounds in Southeast Asia have already become modern slave farms, trapping victims and forcing many of them to become scammers for them. Now they've added another type of worker to the mix: so-called AI models. These professional scammers conduct video calls with their targets, charming th...

Scam Guard for desktop: A second set of eyes for suspicious moments

Scams aren’t so obvious anymore. They're well-written, have working grammar, and can lead victims to very convincing branded webpages. Scammers increasingly use AI tools to clone sites and create highly sophisticated scams at scale, so don't expect to rely on spotting obvious typos anymore. That’...

Europol Raids Disrupt Black Axe Cybercrime Ring in Spain

Authorities caught 34 members of the notorious Black Axe gang in Spain known for stealing millions of Euros through online romance scams and email fraud...

The Ultra-Realistic AI Face Swapping Platform Driving Romance Scams

Capable of creating “nearly perfect” face swaps during live video chats, Haotian has made millions, mainly via Telegram. But its main channel vanished after WIRED's inquiry into scammers using the app...

Pig butchering is the next “humanitarian global crisis” (Lock and Code S06E25)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … This is the story of the world's worst scam and how it is being used to fuel entire underground economies that have the power to rival nation-states across the globe. This is the story of "pig butchering." "Pig butchering" is a violent term that is used to...

WIRED Roundup: DHS’s Privacy Breach, AI Romantic Affairs, and Google Sues Text Scammers

In this episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss our scoop about how the Department of Homeland Security illegally collected Chicago residents’ data for months, as well as the news of the week...

A week in security (September 29 – October 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: From threats to apology, hackers pull child data offline after public backlash Your Meta AI conversations may come back as ads in your feed Scam Facebook groups send malicious Android malware to seniors Sendit tricked kids, harvested their data, and faked messages,...

260 romance scammers and sextortionists caught in huge Interpol sting

Online crime of all kinds is deplorable, but romance scammers and sextortionists who target the most vulnerable victims are among the worst. Now, there’s likely a place for 260 of them in jail, thanks to international law enforcement. Interpol's Operation Contender 3.0 targeted alleged criminals...

A week in security (September 8 – September 14)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: AI browsers or agentic browsers: a look at the future of web surfing From Fitbit to financial despair: How one woman lost her life savings and more to a scammer Meta ignored child sex abuse in VR, say whistleblowers When AI chatbots leak and how it happens Fake...

‘Astronaut-in-distress’ romance scammer steals money from elderly woman

A Japanese octogenarian from Hokkaido Island lost thousands of dollars after being scammed by someone who described himself as a desperate astronaut in need of help. According to Hokkaidō Broadcasting, police in Sapporo say the fraudster contacted the woman on social media in July. After several...

A week in security (August 11 – August 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Italian hotels breached for tens of thousands of scanned IDs National Public Data returns after massive Social Security Number leak Romance scammers in Ghana charged with more than $100 million in theft Netflix scammers target jobseekers to trick them into handing...

Romance scammers in Ghana charged with more than $100 million in theft

The Department of Justice DOJ extradited and indicted 4 Ghanaian nationals for allegedly stealing more than $100 million, mainly through romance scams and business email compromises. According to a report from Comparitech, nearly 59,000 Americans fell victim to romance scams in 2024, losing an...

Ghanaian Nationals Extradited to US Over $100M, BEC, Romance Scams

Three Ghanaian men have been extradited to the US over $100 million fraud involving romance scams and business…...

That seemingly innocent text is probably a scam

A special thanks to all the people at Malwarebytes and ThreatDown for sharing the text messages they received from scammers. Many of us have received texts like these. Often super short, some flirty, some with a business tone, or sometimes just a simple ‘hello.’ You don't know the sender, and the...

Malicious ISO File Used in Romance Scam Targeting German Speakers

Sublime Security reveals a cunning romance/adult-themed scam targeting German speakers, leveraging Keitaro TDS to deliver an AutoIT-based malware loader. Learn how this sophisticated campaign operates, its deceptive tactics, and the hidden payload...

Corpse-eating selfies, and other ways to trick scammers (Lock and Code S06E14)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … There’s a unique counter response to romance scammers. Her name is Becky Holmes. Holmes, an expert and author on romance scams, has spent years responding to nearly every romance scammer who lands a message in her inbox. She told one scammer pretending to ...

5 riskiest places to get scammed online

Scammers love your smartphone. They can text you fraudulent tracking links for packages you never bought. They can profess their empty love to you across your social media apps. They can bombard your email inbox with phishing attempts, impersonate a family member through a phone call, and even...

U.S. Sanctions Funnull for $200M Romance Baiting Scams Tied to Crypto Fraud

The U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC has levied sanctions against a Philippines-based company named Funnull Technology Inc. and its administrator Liu Lizhi for providing infrastructure to conduct romance baiting scams that led to massive cryptocurrency losses. T...